How is ‘what do the words he spoke mean’ not a semantic question?
When has that ever been the case in the past, who is making the rule now, and who is enforcing it? Inventing rules that no one actually follows and demanding that people follow them isn’t going to convince anyone of anything.
It is not, because the words he spoke were clear and not subject to interpretation. You are setting the coherency, intentionality, and sanity bar, that we require from a president, way, way down, if you are going to trumpsplain each of his issuances like this. I’m not ready for that new normal thank you.
What rules are you talking about? I didn’t make any rules.
Assignments are an act of congress so in that sense his presence is perfectly legal. Each party has their own internal rules for selection of committee members and the chair/ranking minority member. The majority party obviously dominates who gets the chair. Here’s a look at the revised rule set the House GOP used to select Nunes to the position. On a quick look I can’t find what rule set they have to possibly remove someone from the chair. I’d assume there is one but the caucus and Ryan haven’t pursued it.
it may not be worth the fallout of going through that process even if Ryan is quietly hoping it’s investigated heavily. It’s not the only committee that is relevant, especially in a bicameral legislature. The Senate Intelligence Committee is investigating. There was talk about the new Armed Services Cybersecurity subcommittee wanting to look into the issue of Russian involvement in the elections as well. John McCain, not exactly a Trump fan, is an ex-officio (non-voting) member of both as Chair of the Armed Services committee. Graham and Rubio, who have also taken personal shots from Trump, are on the Intelligence committee as well. There is more than one way to get there from here; Nunes, at best, is a roadblock on one lane of the multi-lane highway.
Probably looking for a restaurant owned by someone who will let them eat there.
Weirdly, it’s very hard to lose your chairmanship, especially if your party is in power. They have to determine that you should no longer chair the committee and they’re only going to do that if they think it’s better optics for you to lose the seat than to keep it. So at this exact point in time, supporting Trump is not going to result in being replaced as committee chair.
There was literally no evidence to question it, vs a mountain of evidence that Obama was born in Hawaii (including his actual birth certificate). Years after the birther lie gained traction, someone happened to find an advertising blurb from an old publisher that (obviously falsely) said he was born in Kenya, but Trump and others had already been lying for years with nothing.
Sounds more like a Pit response than a Great Debates response. I guess you just can’t help yourself getting in a personal slam instead of the topic at hand.
I’m not going down that rabbit hole again when it’s been discussed to death in other threads here ad nauseam, some of which I’ve participated in and would only be repeating myself here.
Suffice it to say, I think there was reason enough to initially question it. You want to bring it up in those threads, I’d be more than happy to re-engage it there.
Anyone who had ties to Russia Trump has gotten rid of. On his Russian ties in general, it’s being investigated. I’ve never said or will say it should not be investigated. It should be, as well as the wiretapping allegations.
The difference between you and me is what those conclusions will be. Only time will tell. And the sooner the better.
*** The bolded part by the way I don’t have the slightest idea what that means or is referring to.
Thank you both, DinoR and amarinth, for the information, very interesting.
While I had little doubt that his continued presence in the committee is considered legal, it should still be frowned upon as improper by both parties.
Though I can see why Republicans, both critical and supportive of Trump, don’t want to replace him, and pretty public moves were already made that show their agenda.
Who I don’t quite get, is Nunes himself. From my perspective, he has put himself into a position where he is such an easy scapegoat for pretty much every interested party in this mess. How can he expect to get out of this with his career fully intact? He is either a serious party loyalist, or I do miss an advantage for him that 's worth the risk.
Of course, there is someone else who baffles me - the entire Democratic Party. I have no intention to sound insulting, but their measured response is … embarrassing, and the difference in the appearance of dominance between both parties is, once again, staggering.
"Republican congressional investigators expect a potential “smoking gun” establishing that the Obama administration spied on the Trump transition team, and possibly the president-elect himself, will be produced to the House Intelligence Committee this week, a source told Fox News.
…
The intelligence is said to leave no doubt the Obama administration, in its closing days, was using the cover of legitimate surveillance on foreign targets to spy on President-elect Trump, according to sources.
The key to that conclusion is the unmasking of selected U.S. persons whose names appeared in the intelligence, the sources said, adding that the paper trail leaves no other plausible purpose for the unmasking other than to damage the incoming Trump administration."
Are you usually convinced by anonymous sources and no actual evidence?
No. But since anonymous sources and no actual evidence breathless articles are constantly posted by your side, I figured I’d get that one in.
Ahh, the “your side does it too!” defense. I’ve only heard that one a dozen times this week.
Carry on, then.
Besides, that whole argument rests on the assumption that members of the transition team were caught doing something bad. Why aren’t the Republicans more upset about that than the fact they got caught?
I know. It was a rhetorical question.
Trumps loves anonymous sources. Unless anonymous sources criticize him.
Or, you know, do the right thing and have known sources. If your friend jumped off the cliff, would you follow?
Trump isn’t Nixon either. If it ever comes to it he’s not going read the writing on the wall and resign before the House impeaches him. I can easily picture a scenario where he pardons himself just as the Senate starts voting.
"Nunes said he was alarmed by what he saw in several dozen intelligence reports that include transcripts of communications, including communications directly from Trump. The reports were based on a foreign electronic spying operation between November and January. They were revealed by an intelligence community insider who alerted Nunes.
Nunes said on CNN that after reading the reports he was confident the Obama White House and numerous agencies “had a pretty good idea of what President-elect Trump was up to and what his transition team was up to and who they were meeting with.”"
Note: this is not an “anonymous source”. This is Nunes, and he’s basing what he says on actual intelligence reports he has seen.
So - let’s say Obama White House is briefed in an intelligence report that Trump said this and this to a foreign leader he spoke to. Yes, the information was “incidentally” gathered. For me, that is equivalent to Trump being under surveillance. Because if he was under surveillance, the result would be exactly the same.
When do we get to see these reports? Or maybe some Democrats who can confirm the contents?
Do these reports show that the Trump campaign were the target? Or knowing what Trump was doing a result of the Trump campaign being in contact with people who were under surveillance?
I appreciate you letting me know that you are completely divorced from reality. It will help me immensely in deciding whether to expand the effort to read what you write.